


What a Neal Does Best

by love2imagine



Category: White Collar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1667369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is just a silly story I so wanted to write!</p><p>After weeks of gruelling and depressing case-work, the WC team needs cheering up and is primed to get silly.</p><p>Probably, if anyone cares, takes place quite early in the canon, before Neal gets to know the team, but it's Diana, not Cruz, 'cause we've heard Di sing and dance on gag reels!</p><p>You've heard it all before: White Collar not mine, Characters and background not mine...all belong to Jeff Eastin. Songs not mine. Story, such as it is, mine, mistakes, mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Neal Does Best

**Author's Note:**

> THis is for fun.
> 
> I started singing silly WC lyrics to some songs, then realised that these were not only all old, but almost all British-old, so other nationalities may not know the tunes...
> 
>  
> 
> You probably would enjoy the songs more if you knew the tunes, none of which are mine! So I added the Youtube URLs at the end of the story. If you listen to fifteen seconds of each - okay, listen to the whole Flash song! - you may remember the tunes from oldies on the radio or something, but you'll hear how they sang the songs!

 

 

 

 

          It was one of those weeks…well, fortnights…Close on a month, though no-one wanted to remind each other of that!

          There had been an uptick…actually, there’d been an **_avalanche_** of stupid crimes and, like debris amongst the rushing snow, some very clever bank robberies that had gone down without a shred of evidence…if one discounted the fifty-odd million in cash that was nowhere to be found. White collar had been brought in because just before all the activity some obviously forged bonds had also gone missing from a security box, probably an inside job, and Someone From Above had decided all these things were tied together.

 

          Burke was taking flak from Hughes, who was being leaned on by all the higher-ups links in the command chain, all the way to the AG (and, if Mozzie was right, mysterious unelected and unmonitored forces beyond that). Hughes was not pleased, and he was good at shovelling the brown stuff all over Peter.

 

          Subsequently, Burke was being the Jerk from Hell, and Caffrey was seriously wondering if calling the Marshals and calling off his deal might not be a good idea. The Agent hadn’t opened his mouth to say one nice thing to anyone in his department for at least three weeks, and the last thing had been, when poor Jones had left early to go and see an ailing relative, “At least **_he’s_** got an excuse not to find anything about this crime spree today!”                      

Neal had upgraded Jones’ status from poor to very, very fortunate and wondered if he could find some relative, or someone he could pay to be his relative, and cause them to ail.

 

          Burke was nasty to everyone his eyes lit upon, and sarcastic enough to peel paint off a warship, but he seemed to take special pleasure in jerking Neal’s shackles every time he got a chance.

 

          _After all,_ Neal thought, _anyone else can leave, put in for a transfer, get sick, die, for heaven’s sake. All I can do is take it or go back to prison…_ which brought him back to that first thought…where’s the Marshals’ number?

 

          Then Neal started looking round. It wasn’t just him, and **_his_** self-worth was tied, in part, to having at least (Mozzie would know but **_at least)_** seventeen prominent works on display in some of the world’s most famous museums, some lesser works (and many more in smaller institutions and private residences) and not what his ‘Boss’ thought of him this week. He quirked an eyebrow and a lip and wondered how he could cheer up the beaten-down crew of the White Collar Division…

 

          The first thing he thought of was food. He’d lived in Italy and France, and knew how food could lift the spirits. As could spirits, but that would definitely be frowned upon. So he asked Moz for some of his cash and splurged a little and on Friday had a truly delectable spread, including everything that each and every member of the Division liked and, where possible and local, from their favourite providers of said treat. It appeared as they were winding down, looking like woollens washed in the cotton cycle in a test-to-destruction, and everyone’s faces lit up…even Hughes’! But, as the rabbitty children's story goes…. _NOT_ _Peter!_

 

          “Who had the bright idea of wasting the Bureau’s time with this little joke?” Peter snarled. Jones, his face a huge grin as he slid into his mouth a piece of the best red-velvet cake west of the Atlantic Ocean, nearly choked trying to stop eating it. Diana quickly put down a crunchy quinoa-toast triangle with perfectly tree-ripened avocado, shrimp with a sprinkling of caviar and a thin slice of litchi and wiped her fingers as though she’d been told it was laden with anthrax. Hughes, whose face had lightened from his normal expression of needing a Heimlich manoeuvre to something resembling anticipation, froze and scowled a solid Peter scowl.

 

          Neal watched the glare the two most senior agents used to scan the room and wondered what they would do if it wasn’t a spread of finger food, but a huge area of devastated rain forest or a massacre of innocents. They really needed to leave some room in their repertoire of facial expressions for real horror!

 

          No-one said anything for about a minute, though some of the younger, faster members of the team, who enjoyed such delicacies even more seldom than the senior members, could be heard scarfing down the handfuls they’d grabbed before finding bolt holes behind filing cabinets and under desks. With their heightened survival instincts born of being very new and unsure, they’d read Peter better than Neal had, to their credit.

 

          Neal sighed. “I thought, after all our hard work, it would be nice to have a little break, Peter. After all, it might just help us get a fresh perspective on the whole mess.”

 

          “You thought!” Peter scoffed, loudly. “Who asked you to think?”

 

          Neal swallowed the obvious retort that jumped to his lips. “Peter, it’s all paid for, we might as well enjoy it and discuss what we’ve found. Might spark some new insights.”

 

          Even Hughes looked up hopefully to gauge Peter’s response.

 

          “We’ll celebrate when we crack this case, or cases, or whatever! Not till then.”

 

          “Oh-kay,” Neal shrugged. Peter was behind the agents, and couldn’t see their resigned disappointment, but Neal was getting irritated. He made it very definite he was looking at Hughes and said, “Sir, in that case, could I ask for some volunteers to take the excess food down and feed some of the homeless, please?”

 

          Hughes made a grunting assent – they had to remove the trays of food anyhow - and Peter scowled and returned to his office and shut the door with a loud snap!

 

          “Anyone who wants to help can carry whatever they **_like_** and follow me,” Neal said, picking up a tray of the best pizza in town. He knew Peter liked it, and it had all Peter’s favourite toppings.

 

          _“Okay,”_ he said to himself as he reached the elevators and made sure Peter could see him eating a slice, which he could take or leave, as he really wasn’t partial to sausage on pizza, _“no more Mr. Nice Guy!”_

 

          However, it wasn’t the total waste it might have been. As they walked down the closest alleys and shared the food, the agents that had nabbed a tray enjoyed the startled looks and delight on the faces of the people. Neal watched, smiling, as Diana fed wildly expensive liver pâté to a man and his dog, in equal amounts. The dog obligingly licked the tray, which had to go back to El’s catering company. Diana stood up, having said her goodbyes to the pair, and saw Neal watching her. She smiled back.

 

          “Thank you, Neal! That was a great idea, the food, and this was as much fun again! It was so pleasant just to smile for a change, and remember there are people worse off than we are, and who are actually appreciative of what we try and do!”

 

          “Unlike a Certain Somebody!” Neal grinned.

 

          “Exactly!” she said, and shook her head. “Just a ‘well done, pity it didn’t pan out…keep trying!’ now and then….”

 

          Then she went on, “He’s going to ask, for sure, so I will…where did you get the money for this spread? Are you responsible for the banks?”

 

          “Yeah, me and my anklet went round all the ATM’s in my radius and it used its chip to break in. It’s Bonnie – or Bon-ankle, if you want it’s birth name – to my Clyde. And I got more money by forging a Monet. And we used our ill-gotten gains to feed the FBI… ** _sans_** poison, you note! - which would have been worth all the trouble if it had put something resembling a smile on Burke’s face.”

 

          “Monet’s are the worst!”

 

          “Yeah. That’s why it takes an expert! So they are authenticated by the Wildensteins…”

 

          “Yeah, yeah, yeah, stop bragging. Ever actually managed that?”

 

          “Diana, I am very fond of you, you know. But as noted I already have my ankle in this shackle, I don’t need to give you an excuse to -”

 

          “Mm…nice. Don’t admit, don’t deny, keep the aura of inscrutability.”

 

Neal shrugged a little, smiled.

 

Then he collected all the trays and dishes, shoved them all into a cab and went home, without reporting in to the Boss-from-Hell, washed everything and called Elizabeth to tell her he had them all ready.

 

          “I need them tomorrow, Neal!” Elizabeth exclaimed, alarmed. “It’s Saturday!”

 

          “Okay, okay.” Neal sighed to himself. The very, very **_last_** thing he wanted to do was go near the lair of the Burkenmonster, but Elizabeth had done him a favour and so.... “I’ll put them all in clean garbage bags so you don’t have to rewash them and they’ll be there in less than an hour.”

 

          “Thanks, Neal – how did it go?”

 

          “Very well, not quite the way I planned, but the smiles on the faces of those people enjoying it – worth every bit! I didn’t tell Peter “ (fingers crossed _that you’d helped me,_ ) “so just don’t mention it, will you?”

 

          “Sure! See you soon!”

 

          Neal called the cab, scrambled all the trays and dishes into clean garbage bags (the trays were too big for anything else) and told the cabbie to step on it…

          …which, as it happened, meant that Neal stepped out of said conveyance just as Peter, who’d had to park twelve blocks away and walk, got to his front steps.

 

 _That’s what you get for being a bad man and not getting the Ear of the Man Upstairs!_ he told himself, and pasted a smile on his face.

 

          “I’ll give you an extra twenty if you take these bags, when that angry dude in the bad suit and I are inside, and put them up near the side gate there,” he said to the cab driver, who looked generally disgusted with life _(He doesn’t have Burke, what’s he got to worry about!)_ but nodded and pocketed the extra tip.

 

          “What the hell are you doing here, Caffrey?” Burke said, crossly. “Don’t I have to put up with enough from you at work? And why didn’t you come back to the office?”

  _He realises those statements are a sign of lunacy, tacked together like that? Or is he too far gone?_ “I just wanted to come and make sure everything was okay…I had an errand to run, that’s all.”

           “You ask permission before you just bug off on your own little escapades, in future!”

           “Yes, Sir,” Neal said, as humbly as he could manage.

           “Don’t be insolent with me!”

           Neal would have just got back in the cab, but the driver was wanting to get out and put the bags by the gate, and he dithered a second too long.

           “Are you coming in, or what?”

           Deciding that anything, absolutely anything he said or didn’t say would be used against him, Neal nodded and went up the stairs in front of Peter, which gave him an itch between the shoulder blades just about where Peter’s glare was focussed.

 

          Elizabeth, hearing their voices (Peter didn’t have any voice modulation when he was in this mood), came and opened the door as Neal got there. She was about to ask what he’d done with her things, but his desperate face and mouthed words (which she didn’t understand) caused her, thankfully, to pause and Peter pushed past Neal and said, “Look what the cat dragged in.”

           “Peter very nicely asked me to come in for a coffee or something, Elizabeth. Hope I’m not intruding.”

           “Of course not, Neal. I haven’t seen you for a while. How nice!”

           “Might be nice for you!” Peter muttered, hanging up his coat and giving Neal the chance to say,

          “I’ll come and help” and hurry Elizabeth into the kitchen so he could hiss, “The trays are outside. I’ll get them when I can, or if I can’t –

           ............“Oh, coffee for you, Peter?”

 

          “For us both! We’ve got a lot of work tonight! You can help me drag the boxes back from Outer Mongolia where I had to park the car earlier.”

           “I wasn’t planning to stay.”

           “I don’t care what you were planning to do! It’s probably illegal anyway, I’m doing you a favour keeping you safe. You bunked out early, you can make it up. After all, you only work for the FBI 9 – 5 most days, and prison is 24/7, so you owe us some few months already, I should think.”

Neal and Elizabeth shared an eye-roll.

           “I got to sleep, in prison, actually, you’d be surprised, and there was the time in the yard and generally - ” Neal bit back the comment that the company was more intelligent, better dressed and much more fun to be with… _Don’t poke the smoking dragon with a stick, Neal!_

          “So you’d like to go back? That can be arranged,” Peter said, dialling for take-out.

           Elizabeth squeezed Neal’s arm as he was about to say that, yes, in fact, not a bad idea…

 

          They both walked down the road and back twice to collect the work Peter thought was reasonable for an evening at home with his lovely wife. It was far enough away that Neal’s anklet beeped and the Marshals called. Peter told him Neal was helping him, to turn it off, and the sarcasm in his voice made Neal wince. And Neal wasn’t given to wincing.

           Neal gave Elizabeth, who was looking disgruntled at all the boxes cluttering up her living room, as sympathetic a look as possible.

           “I’m sorry, Hon, but if I don’t crack this case – or cases! – Hughes will ask for my badge,” Peter told her, which Neal thought was a gross exaggeration…who else in the world would Hughes get to work like this?...and the two of them ate in the basement, going over the files.

           At two, Neal declared that he couldn’t see what he was reading or understand it if he did, and was going home. Peter said he might as well stay over – which would have meant working even later and getting up early, too, so Neal put his foot down and made it up the stairs.

          Elizabeth had already gone up to bed, but hearing them arguing wandered back down, looking as though she had (lucky woman) several hours sleep already.

           “Did you let Satchmo out at all, Hon?” she asked, and Peter, still glowering at Neal, said, “No, I’ll let him out now.”

           Elizabeth cuddled her wrap around her and whispered, “Please crack this case, Neal, it’s going to drive us all insane!”

           “Oh, I was just enjoying this lovely mood he’s in, I didn’t want to solve the thing and ruin it!” Neal said, sarcastically, a tone he seldom used with Elizabeth. He was about to apologise when there was a volley of barks from Satchmo. They heard Peter go all Rambo and say, loudly, “What is it, boy? Someone sneaking around outside the gate?”

           To Neal, it was like watching (in his imagination) one of those slow-motion videos of a controlled-implosion of a lovely old building. He wanted to yell but only managed to say, softly, “No…oo!” – and then there was a furious, loud shout from Peter, a yelp and a clatter like a thousand stainless-steel bed-pans (and their entire contents) falling down three flights of stairs in Neal’s direction.

 

 Neal did what a Neal does best…he fled.

 

  

          Neal didn’t know if Peter had raced off in his car to find him at June’s. He legged it down two blocks and across three through an alley, nearly fell over a cat, grabbed a cab and took that directly to Wednesday, remembered the code and knocked.

           There was a deathly silence which either meant that Mozzie wasn’t there or that he was. After another minute, Neal knocked again, SOS.

           “A bird never sits on a wire.”

           Neal breathed a sigh of relief. “When the mangoes ripen, the islands are like jewels.”

           The door opened a crack. Moz carefully checked it was him and not some other well-put-together young man of great sartorial elegance, despite the fact that he’d remembered the insanely unrelated answer-code. Then he let him in and demanded, voice full of hope, “Have you run? Are we going?”

           “I ran, but only a short distance. Burke is after my blood and for no good reason. I just don’t want to be at June’s this weekend. Walk with me!”

           Mozzie gave him a disgusted look. “You’re here, and you’re wearing **_that thing!_** Do you know how difficult it is to find pleasant, comfortable safe-houses in New York?”

           “I’m sorry, Moz. I don’t think Peter will re-activate it.”

           “Despite your delightfully naively positive thoughts, you can’t stay here. I’ve got some cash, I’ll get you a place. I’ll put on a coat. Start walking east.”

           Neal obediently followed Mozzie to a small but perfectly nice hotel within his radius, fell on the bed and went to sleep. Obviously Mozzie knew the proprietors, there had been no demands for credit cards or ID.

 

          He slept late, and when he awoke he expected to see Peter sitting in the armchair, gun trained on his CI, but there was only Mozzie, some of the great soup from Mozzie’s favourite like-home-made restaurant, wine, tea and coffee all in Thermos’ of various volumes.

           Neal showered and when they were eating, Moz asked, “What did you do – or what did Burke do – to cause this rift?”

           “Um – let’s say this, I wouldn’t have wanted to be working with the Division when they were after me! He’s like a crazy man! And I tried to make things better, but it went a little awry.”

           “Ah.”

           “Yes…last I heard, he was falling over his wife’s heavy metal collection I’d returned, but left in the garden as he didn’t know she’d helped me with a small treat for the division and I thought it would make it simpler if it stayed that way, anything can set him off!... _and_ falling over the dog… _and_ probably damaging those same trays and bowls and serving dishes, so Elizabeth is going to be furious with me as well.”

           “Neal, I keep warning you about those good intentions….”

           “Yeah, yeah – no good deed goes unpunished and all that. I just thought if he didn’t have a chance to cool off the punishment might be all too painful, so I bunked.”

           “Easier if you weren’t on a long piece of string, mon frère!”

           “Well, he must have been exhausted, and El must have been exhausted, otherwise he might have chased me from there around the borough to here, but I am still alive, so he must have thought me not worth it…at the time."

           “Or he’s at the hospital with a broken leg or at the vet’s with Satchmo.”

           “You’ve read the Bible, haven’t you? You know about Job’s little helpers?”

          Mozzie managed a smile. “Your anklet didn’t track us to you-know-where?”

           “It’s still off.” Neal turned his ankle.

           “Thank goodness. I just finished the bookcases and the record-case, a concealed safe and put in new security. Hate to move.”

           “Sorry about that. I didn’t have much cash and the first place he’d try was June’s…and to give credit where credit is due you are the most efficient mover in the history of time. I’d love to have your DNA tested, as I’m pretty sure your telomeres would give your age as something well over the age of the Great Pyramid.”

           “My most magnificent work,” Mozzie shrugged. “And its secrets are still hidden.”

           The friends grinned at each other.

           “So what’s the new plan? Get sick enough to stay off work?”

           “Got something?”

           “Lots. What symptoms do you want?”

           Neal sat a moment. “The problem with that is that the other poor saps are still left there.”

           “Um – they get paid?”

           “Um – not enough!”

           “I could make the whole building sick?”

           Neal smiled, but shook his head.

           “Why don’t you just solve the case?”

           “Oh, why didn’t **_we_** think of that!” Neal snarked. Then, “You know, if he’d just back off a little, we’d have a better chance. It’s hard to think with him glaring and offering biting and non-constructive criticism every time we turn round.”

           “You’ve actually tried telling him this?”

           “Second day of this trek through the desert. He told me not to expect him to be soft with me, I was too used to luxurious living! ”

           “Mmm. Supermax. 900 thread-count sheets.”

           “I think he meant before then.”

           “Some of it was.”

           “I just need to cheer up everyone else.”

           Mozzie blinked. He wasn’t known for pep-talks. They sat in silence for a while and then Moz got up and said, “I have to see a man about a parcel – you’ll be all right?”

           “Yeah – or he’ll come over and I won’t, but your presence would just be salt in the wound, so no matter.

          “Let me know if you hear anything on the street.”

           “I have tried, but it’s a closed cell, Neal. Smart.”

 

 

Neal was standing by the kerb waiting when Burke pulled up at June’s on Monday morning. After all, June didn’t need to be woken by his screams of anguish if Burke decided he liked the smell of vengeance in the morning. However, Burke merely pushed open the door, Neal climbed in and he pulled away.

         There was an eerie silence for a few blocks and then Peter said,   

        “Why didn’t you tell me my wife had helped you with that picnic?”

           “Didn’t think it’d make any positive difference,” Neal answered. “Is Satchmo all right?”

           Burke breathed loudly through his nose. “Yes, the dog is fine and apart from a few scrapes, and scratches, a wrecked pair of pants and a wrenched shoulder – and an annoyed wife – I’m fine, too, thanks for asking.”

           “I know you’re a fully trained, rough, tough Federal Agent.”

           Peter turned to glare and would have run into another car if the Taurus hadn’t yelped in fear.

           “You keep telling me you have to be tougher and hardier than we of the criminal classes – and I’ve jumped out of…um…five windows now and off two bridges.”

           “ ** _You_** can’t blame **_me_** for those!”

           “Not all of them.”

           “Fair enough.”

           There was another silence. Neal started to relax. This had gone pretty well, considering.

           “You better tell me you have some brilliant ideas about the case.”

           “Closed cell. No leads in or out. That takes sophisticated planning. Long term. No money suddenly appearing – probably not going to. No-one was killed. No-one was deliberately injured.”

          “Could have been you and Mozzie.”

           “Oh, yeah, if you discount this thing,” he waved his foot.

           “If it were you…and we know there were at least five main guys involved...what would you do now?”

           “Absolutely nothing. Go back to work at my job - ” At Peter’s withering look, Neal huffed and said, “ – if _I_ was planning this, we’d all have legitimate and regular and long term jobs that paid okay, and go back to them. We don’t want anyone getting impatient. It’s a lot of money to launder and haste is the worst problem.

          “There’s also the age-old problem of trust between the gang-members. Never been a problem for me, it’s why I never went in for stuff like this, but for most groups that’s the first…what do you do?

          “Hand it to one person? – no-one likes that except the Banker. Hide it somewhere everyone knows – all worry that someone is going to go and get some and it’ll show up on the street and ruin everything, which is the problem if you split it up immediately, or that one will steal all of it. Then there’s the plan that occurs to most members of this kind of deal, because people are pretty greedy and weak – if I kill of one, two or more of the others, there’ll be more for me.”

           “You haven’t given me anything new.”

           “I haven’t thought of anything new.”

 

          They reached the offices and everyone else was already there, trying to avoid exacerbating Burke’s bad mood. They looked up, said, “Good morning, Boss” or “Good morning, Sir,” and looked down again immediately, like kids in school who did **_not_** want to be asked a question!

           Neal realised that the debacle with the bags of trays had made his position more difficult. After that, he couldn’t think of anything he could do that would make the team feel better and wouldn’t push Peter over the edge. He was going to have to tread carefully.

           It was nearly break-time, and he was wondering if getting up and getting coffee, right under Burke’s nose, was worth it **_at all_** considering the quality of the coffee. He certainly wouldn’t dare ask if he could go on a potable-coffee run! Burke had even been impatient with his blue-eyed-brown-eyed girl, Diana, this morning!

 

          They all survived, moody and tired, for two more days, chasing leads in sensible and far-from-sensible databases, their only small entertainment coming from the truly outrageous tips called in by some of the concerned public.

           By the Wednesday, there weren’t even any stupid places to look, or so it felt.

           Neal stood and went over to Diana. “Look, this is closed, we know that. No word on the street. Can you find all the homicides, or even accidental deaths that **_may_** be suspicious in New York, and perhaps further afield, involving victims with no recent criminal record, but perhaps over-lapping in some way? Same job, same work-place, same sort of age?”

           Diana looked up. “As in house-cleaning?”

           “Something like that. The best would be a group who got together in prison, but a long while ago. But then, they aren’t old, from the footage. Hey, I’m being age-ist…they might just have kept in really good shape.”

           “So what about the rest of the crimes, the petty stuff, the silly stuff?”

           “It’s a classic distraction, we agree on that, yes?”

           “But how on earth did they coordinate it? There’s no flash-mob, nothing on social media at all…”

           “Don’t know. I’ve used my contacts, and so has my friend. These people are quiet as in silent!”

           “I’ll look.”

           “Thanks, Diana.”

           “Don’t chat!” yelled Peter, without getting up from his desk.

           “Grr!” said Neal, through his smiling teeth as he waved placatingly up at Burke. He went away singing quietly, syncopating with his shoulders,

          “ ‘If you want it, come and get it, I got it, Whoaa,

          “ ‘If you need it, come and get it, I got it, Whoaa

          “ ‘What you thought you saw you did not see,

          “ ‘ ‘Cause it’s so easy for me

          “ ‘To evade traps and security,

          “ ‘I like to challenge my ability.

          “ ‘So don’t you underestimate me,

          “ ‘I’m versatile with agility.

          “ ‘So don’t you be surprised if you lose the prize,

          “ ‘Cause I’ve done this before!’”

 

          Diana looked up and smiled, recognising one of Neal’s favourite make-himself-happy songs…could have been written for him. Perhaps it had! He flashed her a small grin and went back to work.

           By next morning, Neal hadn’t come up with any uplifting ideas, but he found that Diana had! As a challenge to his song, apparently.

           Everyone was sitting down, reading through reports and files and clicking keys on computers. Burke, as usual, went straight in for an early morning meeting with Hughes.

           Neal came in feeling wet-and-old-dish-raggish. He did not want to go through another day like yesterday and another month like last month… _please, no!_ He plumped down in his chair and pulled out the drawer of his desk and it exploded – quietly! – with green suckers, identical to the one he’d given Burke before being caught. Rigged, the other drawers opened on cue and spilled equal numbers of green candies-on-sticks all over the floor and his feet. At the same time a horribly high, tinny voice sang, quietly but insistently,

 

          ...‘My boy Lollipop  
            ‘You make my heart go giddy-up  
            ‘You set the world on fire  
            ‘You are my one desire  
            ‘Whoa, my Lollipop  
  
            ‘I love you, I love you, I love you so  
            ‘But I don't want you to know  
            ‘I need you, I need you, I need you so  
            ‘And I'll never let you go - !’

 

          Neal glanced up at the Offices of the Superiors, but no-one came charging out. His look of surprise and horror had the whole floor, all waiting for this, giggling and chortling like eight-year-olds, especially when he tried to scoop up the suckers and hide them before Peter noticed, and the slippery cellophane wrappers determined to make his life difficult. Eventually Diana, Jones, and two Probies, Alan and Sue, came to his rescue with reusable shopping bags.

           Diana hissed, as she left, “You weren’t versatile and agile enough when Special Agent Burke wanted you, remember? And he’ll **_never_ ** let you go!”

           “Thank you!” Neal gasped, not for the snide comment, but for getting rid of the slithery lime-green evidence. When he came up from under his desk, a little dishevelled, there was one lollipop left, sitting in his pen-mug, smugly wearing a tiny paper fedora. When he pulled it out, it had a teeny-tiny tracking anklet (made out of a teeny-tiny strip of duct-tape) near the bottom of the stick.

           He raised an eyebrow at Diana and flicked a **_touché_** in her direction. Where had she found that song…! Everyone on the floor was grinning and chuckling as they went back to work.

 

          Of course, this couldn’t go without an answering volley, especially as the song became lodged firmly in everyone’s head and they were all humming it and singing it.

 

After lunch, Burke and Hughes had to go and report to some big-wig, and they did not look happy about it! The team sighed. The sarcasm always escalated after such Incentive from Above.

 

As soon as the elevator had descended, Neal stood and started singing, dancing down the aisle between desks,

           “ ‘There’s a long-legged LEO dressed in black,

          “ ‘Dressed in black, dressed in black, dressed in bad-bad-black!

          “ ‘There’s a long-legged LEO dressed in black,

          “ ‘Dressed in black, dressed in black, dressed in bad-bad-black!

 

          “ ‘Every time I make a move he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I make a move he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I make a move he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I make a move he tells me **_NO!’”_**

****

Everyone who had heard the song promptly got up and started to dance and do the instrumental bit with much gusto!  

         

Diana, who had been **_really_** dancing, gasped,

 

          “ ‘Oh, his head, like his name, is a rock,

          “ ‘Is a rock, is a rock, is a rock-rock-rock!

          “ ‘Oh, his head, like his name, is a rock,

          “ ‘Is a rock, is a rock, is a rock-rock-rock!

 

And Neal went to join her, singing,

 

          “ ‘Every time I pick a lock he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I pick a lock he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I pick a lock he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I pick a lock he tells me **_NO!’”_**

****

And after the team had done an even more spirited version of the linking instrumental, he went on, with relish,

 

          “ ‘The devil’s got some ham for him in hell and if

          “ ‘You go down there

          “ ‘You will find it

          “ ‘By the smell!

          “ ‘Oh, the devil’s got some ham for him in hell and if

          “ ‘You go down there

          “ ‘You will find it

          “ ‘By the smell!

 

          “ ‘Every time I forge a bond he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I forge a bond he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I forge a bond he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘Every time I forge a bond he tells me **_NO!’”_**

****

By now every last member, even the probies, even the stuck-up Sheila, was smiling and at least trying to dance, while the really energetic ones, like Diana, Neal, Jones and Simon were jiving it up like mad.

 

Everyone looked around expectantly and Jones went on in a very nice voice,

         

          “ ‘Oh, how’d he get a wife as sweet as El?

          “ 'With all the brains in this department, well, we still can’t tell!

          “ ‘Oh, how’d he get a wife as sweet as El?

          “ 'With all the brains in this department, well, we still can’t tell!’”

 

Neal had been waiting and chimed in,

 

          “ ‘When I paint a new Monet he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘When I paint a new Monet he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘When I paint a new Monet he tells me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘When I paint a new Monet he tells me **_NO!’”_**

****

By now they were becoming breathless, and the instrumental was a little spotty, and everyone felt that the song was done, anyway, when Alan, the small and shy Probie that some others called the mouse when he wasn’t around, sang in a clear, jazzy tenor,

 

          “ ‘Oh, that ugly, yeucky, lucky yellow tie!

          “ ‘I heard a gangster shot it twenty times, but it don’t die!

          “ ‘Oh, that ugly, yeucky, lucky yellow tie!

          “ ‘I heard a gangster shot it twenty times, but it don’t die!’”

 

Neal, laughing so much he could hardly breathe, managed,

 

          “ ‘When I cleaned out half the Met he told me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘When I cleaned out half the Met he told me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘When I cleaned out half the Met he told me **_NO!_**

          “ ‘When I cleaned out half the Met he told me **_NO!’”_** and collapsed on the nearest chair.

****

          “Come on, lunch time tomorrow – or after work tomorrow – I want that on video!” Diana gasped. “I haven’t felt so good for months and months!”

           Simon said, “My family used to sing around the camp-fire! I haven’t for years! Thank you, guys! I feel like a new man altogether!”

           “Family,” Diana said, thoughtfully.

           “Yes – good thinking, Simon. The problem with a robbery like this is trust…a family group would work.” Neal was thinking hard.

           “Not if they were like most families!” Jones told him.

           “But some **_are_** strong, trusting. Or just afraid.”

           “So we’re looking for Ma Baker’s boys?” Diana demanded. “I don’t know how we find them! They might not even all have the same last name!”

           “Yeah, uncles or brothers-in-law or something,” Jones agreed.

           “It makes it little easier. Five grown, athletic men in a family isn’t as common as it used to be,” Neal pointed out. “And they know about law enforcement techniques. What if they’re a family of policemen?”

           “Great, we’re going to arrest Magnum and the rest of the Bluebloods, **_that’ll_** make us popular with local law enforcement!” Diana moaned.

           “Can we look for multiple occurrences of the same name in the same area and profession?” Neal asked.

           “I’ll figure out a way!” Jones told him, and they all went back to work, some doing searches, some looking over the data again with the thought in mind that it had been perpetrated by a family of policemen.

           “Why New York?” Neal asked, putting up his head. “I mean, are they local, or – ?”

           “Banking capital, lots of people…?” Alan put in.

          “And they may not be all in the same area,” Owen pointed out. “At least not now. Maybe in the planning stage.”

           “Oh, hell – we’d need to access vacation requests to the same area on Thanks-giving or Christmas or something!” Neal groaned. “Airline tickets? Can we get those for holidays?”

           “Not obviously local,” Jones shook his head, looking up from his computer.

           “Family-owned security firm?” Neal called across and then the elevator hissed and Hughes and Burke stalked through and everyone put their heads down again, but now and then, when the superiors had closeted themselves in their offices, someone could be heard humming the tunes they’d plagiarised, and everyone would smile.

 

          At three-thirty, Peter came and stood by Jones’ desk. “I have to leave for a dentist’s appointment, Jones. Don’t want Caffrey not to be putting in his hours. Would you mind taking him home after work?”

           “No, Boss, I can do that,” Jones said, dead-pan.

           Burke just glared at Neal and walked out, briefcase in hand and coat over is arm.

           “Wow, he’s hardly ever like this,” Diana said. “Since we were trying to catch **_you_** , Neal!”

           “Yeah, yeah! Now I know why you all hated me when I came to join you – me, sweet, happy, charming **_me!”_**   Neal nodded.

           “Well, at least we don’t have to stay late!” Alan declared. “My wife will divorce me if I’m late again!”

           “Oh, no you don’t!” Diana told him. “I want that video! We’ll go up a _leetle_ before five – up at the top of the parking garage, where visitors park, there’s never anyone there after hours and hardly ever anyone after about three!”

           So they trouped up and redid the Long-Legged LEO song, as it immediately came to be known, with several cell-phones recording at different angles, with even more enthusiastic and co-ordinated dancing…

          … and then Jones appeared, the FBI flag pinned round his neck to make a cape – sort of – and a black moustache stuck on his upper lip with magic tape. He promptly started ‘flying’ round the group, one arm outstretched a là Superman, singing,

 

          “ ’Stache! a-ah  
          “ ‘Saviour of the Universe  
          “ ’Stache! a-ah  
          “ ‘He'll save every one of us  
  
          “ ’Stache! a-ah  
          “ ‘He's a miracle  
          “ ’Stache! a-ah  
          “ ‘King of the impossible  
  
          “ ‘He's for every one of us  
          “ ‘Stand for every one of us  
          “ ‘He save with a mighty hand  
          “ ‘Every man, every woman  
          “ ‘Every child, with a mighty  
          “ ’Stache!’”

 

He was obviously going to stop there, having made everyone laugh, and Neal said, “I thought you were Hitler there for a minute!” to which Jones replied, “Yeah, there’re lots of similarities with our Stache!” but Diana grabbed Jones’ arm and crooned idiotically at him,  
  
          “ ‘Just a man  
          “ ‘With a man's courage  
          “ ‘You know he's  
          “ ‘Nothing but a man  
          “ ‘And he can never fail  
          “ ‘No one but the pure at heart  
          “ ‘May find the Golden Grail  
.         “ ‘..Oh..Oh........Oh..Oh....’”

And then clutched Jones’ lapels, doing the best imitation of a helpless female she could manage and gasped,

          **_“ ‘’Stache! ’Stache, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”_**

****

          They all laughed together, collected their phones and went down to their cars, chattering and happy.

 

          Neal watched Diana and Jones together, and wondered how both of them knew all those words to _Flash Gordon!_ Even Queen fans didn’t usually know _Flash Gordon!  _ He upgraded his ideas about both of those agents!

 

          The next day, Neal was feeling better. They had some new ideas, perhaps they were about to catch a break!

 

          He opened his drawer, not paying attention, and what looked like several thousand little, uniform sticks tumbled out. He glared in astonished fury at Diana , who had her hand over her mouth to hide a grin. He picked up one of the sticks…it had a moustache and had a tiny piece of string attached to it.

           “What’s - ?” Neal started, when a deeper-voice recording sang softly, and lugubriously,

          ‘When you come to the end of a lollipop,  
          ‘To the end, to the end, of a lollipop,  
          ‘When you come to the end of a lollipop,  
          ‘Plop goes your heart!

          ‘Gilly Oh golly, how I love my lolly,  
          ‘Right down to the very last lick,  
          ‘But when you are through with it, what can you do with it,  
          All you have left is the stick…!’

          Diana clicked it off, and Neal scrambled around under his desk for the second morning in a row sweeping together evidence – piles of little lollipop sticks with moustaches and strings.

_The joys of internet downloads!_

          “What’s the string for?” he hissed at her. He was admiring, however. It must have taken her hours to make all the little moustaches and tie the strings… ** _dedication!_**

          “Well, Peter wanted you a lot, you know. But when he got you he found the sweetness didn’t last. And the stick and the string are all that’s left – there used to be a carrot, but you must have stolen it, so you can blame yourself if all you get now is the stick!”

          “I shall go back to prison! People didn’t make fun of me there!” Neal sniffed.

          “You know…prison guards. They talk to the inmates, don’t they? What if there were a bunch that got together…learned what the inmates had done in return for favours…?”

          “Jones,” Neal said, excitedly, “can you access prison guards that once worked together…they might not have, but let’s start there…who all took vacation time at the time of the bank robberies?”

          “On it, Lollipop!” Jones grinned, and his computer smoked as he typed furiously.

          “I’m not sure I like that…” Neal objected.

          “You’d prefer ‘Sucker’?” Diana sniggered. “It is more apt, you know. He’s great, but you let him get you, especially the second time!”

          “How about we stick to Caffrey?” Neal begged. “Or Neal, Darling, Honey, Sweetie, or Sir - And though I like your little sticks, I can raise your sticks and go one better….if everyone will meet at lunch in the firing range!”

          “You can’t handle weapons… ** _Caffrey!”_** Diana told him.

          “Don’t need to. So long as we’re alone in there, the White Collar Division!”

Peter was so involved with his own ideas that he didn’t notice everyone quietly sneaking out at lunch time. Neal had been gone a while, telling Jones he had a bad case of indigestion, in case Peter should ask.

          When they reached the firing range, Neal was there and handed each of them a yellow paper tie he had made and coloured with violent- yellow high-lighter.

          “Alan is right – can’t miss that! If Burke asks, you just brought me down here to intimidate me because I’ve been lazy and I hate guns,” Neal told them as they clipped the tie-targets to the retrieval system, loaded the weapons and put on ear-protection – and made sure that Neal had done the same – and started firing.

          Diana’s was the best, she totally shredded the 10” tie and only got back the knot! Everyone felt better taking their frustrations out on representations of Peter’s worst tie!

          They quickly cleaned their weapons and went back, carefully concealing the gaudy and tattered remains.

          Friday, the team worked hard on finding the guards…they had to make sure their careers crossed, had to be with the right kind of criminals, had to be the right sort of ages…and when Jones found the vacation requests, all for the right couple of weeks, they felt they had the right crew.

          “Don’t know how they co-ordinated it, but they could have told all their released friends to go on a silly crime spree, not worry about stealing much, just don’t get caught and create a diversion,” Neal hissed at Diana, and at that moment there came a roar from Peter,

          “CAFFREY! Get over here!”

 

Peter had been getting himself a cup of coffee. Neal, his eyes huge, hurried into the lunch room and there, on the wall, was a nearly-typical WANTED poster. The sketch was of a high-light-yellow tie, with many black circles inked onto it for bullet-holes, and little crosses for dead eyes on the ‘head’ knot. Over and under the tie were the words:

 

                                       WANTED: DEAD.

 

Neal stared at it in amazement.

          “How **_dare_** you!” Peter bellowed. “Not only wasting Bureau time, and resources, but insulting me as well, in front of all my team, which you are not one of!”

          Neal was practically deafened, and in no fit state to correct Burke’s grammar, and argue that one sheet of paper and a small amount of ink couldn’t really break the budget of the United States Government!

          Who could have done it…they must know Peter would think he was the evil perpetrator!

          “How **_dare_** you!” Peter repeated.

          “Just a joke, Peter!” Neal said, weakly. “It’s Friday!”

          “For that, you can come home with me and we’ll work all weekend!” Peter told him.

          “Yes, Peter,” Neal sighed. He was pretty sure they’d nearly got the lead they were looking for, but he wasn’t going to be the one to break it to Burke.

          “Boss!” said Diana, coming in the door. “Can we speak to you, please?”

          “Sure, Diana,” Peter said, grabbing the wanted poster and folding it...

          … _he’s probably going to dust it!_ Neal thought _and add it to the weight of evidence against his CI!_

          They walked out of the lunch room and there was Bancroft. Burke flinched and put the folded ‘poster’ in his inside breast pocket.

          “I heard you call out loudly, Peter,” Bancroft understated, “and give Caffrey the credit for my little joke.”

          Everyone in the room stilled and gazed at Bancroft with widened eyes. “Come on, Burke, we all know about your lucky yellow tie, and the whole division needs a laugh! We’ll get these guys, but there’s no use becoming victims of high-blood-pressure in the meantime!”

          “It was **_you…?”_** Peter mumbled, “…Sir?”

          “It was!”

          “And Boss, Mr. Bancroft, Sir, we think we know who committed the bank robberies!” Diana interjected, hurriedly.

          “You do?” Peter said, his eyes lighting up.

          “Yes, and it was a real combined team effort!” Diana went on, “Including Neal!”

          She laid it all out for them, and both Bancroft and Burke liked the evidence. “Bring them in for questioning!” Bancroft declared. They all sighed deep sighs of relief.

          Bancroft lingered while Peter took the stairs two at a time to go and tell Hughes and said, quietly, “I saw your little – um – aerobics exercise in the parkade, to get your energy up and your blood flowing. Very good. But Jones, don’t disrespect the Bureau flag!” He started up the stairs and came back down. Everyone leaned in to hear him whisper, “Whoever puts together the video, I want a copy, or I’m telling Burke!”

          “Gotcha, Boss!” Diana grinned.

 

          “We get to go home early today!” Peter exclaimed, a little later. “Well done everyone! Really! Thanks so much for all your hard work!”

          “You don’t want me to come round and bother Elizabeth, do you?” Neal asked.

          “No.” Peter dithered a little. “Sorry about earlier…I know you hate that tie, and it did look like your work, a forgery of my tie!”

          “Peter!” Neal complained. “A forgery I did would be indistinguishable from the original, you’d be thrilled to get a spare! And I don’t work in polyester!”

          Peter gave him a one-armed hug and said, “Get your things, let’s all go home! I’ll give you a lift and perhaps even spring for something from some silly bakery on the way, if you’d like.”

          Neal smiled happily, forgetting all about Peter’s bad mood and the horrible days…a mistake as it was to turn out.

          All the team grinned at each other. A free weekend! Lovely!

          At that moment Peter’s phone that he was holding, his carefully **_locked_** phone that had been in his jacket pocket and with him **_all day,_** suddenly rang loudly. He gazed at it astonishment. It was playing:

**‘My boy lollipop!   You make my heart go giddy-up – !'**

 

 _“NEAL!”_ yelled Peter.

 

 

But Neal had done what a Neal does best.

 

 

 

 

End

 

 

"Long Legged Woman Dressed In Black" by Mungo Jerry written by Ray Dorset

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HsZJBxY_8k&feature=kp ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HsZJBxY_8k&feature=kp%20)

 

"My Boy Lollipop" a song written in the mid-1950s by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs, and usually credited to Spencer, Morris Levy, and Johnny Roberts

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCUcbRTB6Rs ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCUcbRTB6Rs%20)

When you come to the end of a lollipop Written By – Hoffman; Manning

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIVpMXHqlk>

Flash Movie Title Song (written and played and sung by the incomparable Queen) plus some visuals…one fan says the cheesiest, camp, sci and has Brian Blessed in wings and hot pants! THE best campy movie EVER! Was in stitches all the way through.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIVpMXHqlk>   or

 Queen - Greatest Hits volume I, Flash Theme at 47.30

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMha5PFlnpc ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMha5PFlnpc%20)

 

This next is the only version of Kevin Lyttle’s song “If you want it” I can find online, so you can get the melody and especially rhythm. It was set to different words and was the song playing out the movie After the Sunsets’ credits…which, if you watch it, see how much better it would have been with Neal and Peter…but there ya go! I’ve always called that version “Neal’s Song”, and I found the words online, but do not know who adapted them for the movie. (IF ANYONE FINDS THE NEAL'S SONG VERSION ONLINE, I WANT IT! PLEASE! I JUST COPIED IT ONTO A DVD FROM THE MOVIE!)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWeg-W0xyok ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWeg-W0xyok%20)

 

The words sung in After the Sunset,:

 

If you want it,

come and get it

I've got it            

 

Oh, whoa

 

If you need it,

come and get it        

I've got it

          

Oh, whoa

 

If you want it, come and get it

           I've got it

 

Oh, whoa

 

If you need it, come and get it

             I've got it

Ahh

 

 

I'm a pro, when it comes to the getaway

So don't even try to follow me        

 

Bonnie and Clyde, me and my lady

Right on down to the end of the story

 

I'm wanted in so many countries            

Not even the feds can catch me

 

'Cause I am made to run In this profession

there is no other like me

  

If you want it, come and get it

                  

I've got it            

Oh, whoa

                

If you need it, come and get it

                  

I've got it              

Oh, whoa

 

If you want it, come and get it

I've got it

 

Oh, whoa

 

If you need it, come and get it

I've got it

 

Oh, yeah

 

 

 

What you think you saw, you did not see

'Cause it's so easy for me

To get away from sharks and security

I love to challenge my ability

So never underestimate me

I'm versatile with agility

Don't you be surprised

if you lose the prize

'Cause I've done this before

 

If you want it, come and get it

I've got it

Oh, whoa

 

If you need it, come and get it

I've got it

Oh, yeah

 


End file.
